The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for generating or controlling tones which are used in electronic musical instruments, amusement equipment and other tone generating apparatus. For example, the present invention concerns an apparatus and method which are suitably applicable to electronic musical instruments that generate high-quality tone signals through parallel processing by a plurality of resources.
There have been known and used a great variety of electronic musical instruments, from low-performance-grade types that are inexpensive but have poor expressive power to high-performance-grade types that have superior expressive power. In high-performance-grade type electronic pianos, for example, a great many sorts of waveforms are prestored in memory in corresponding relation to various possible performance states and tone pitches, and the sampling frequency is set high. In low-performance-grade electronic pianos, on the other hand, only one or several sorts of waveforms are prestored in memory, and the sampling frequency is set low.
With the high-performance-grade types, it has been conventional to synthesize tone signals through parallel processing by a plurality of tone generator units, in order to secure necessary processing capabilities. Generally, the number of the tone generator units to be used in the parallel processing decreases as the performance grade lowers.
However, in the conventionally-known high-performance-grade type, each of the tone generator units has a different role, so that a dedicated tone generator unit must be provided for each of the roles. Also, in a situation where electronic musical instruments from a low-performance-grade type to a high-performance-grade type are to be constructed, a dedicated tone generator unit must be provided for each of the roles in each of the performance-grade types, because the role of each of the tone generator units also differs between the performance-grade types. As a consequence, a great number of the tone generator units have to be provided, which would unavoidably lead to increased costs.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus and method which can greatly facilitate commonization of tone generator units or tone control units.
In order to accomplish the above-mentioned object, the present invention provides an apparatus for generating or controlling a tone, which comprises: a plurality of units for generating or controlling a tone; and a device that supplies control information for generating or controlling a tone, and wherein each of the units has identification information defining control information to be used by the unit and determines, in accordance with the identification information, whether or not a tone signal based on the supplied control information is to be generated or controlled.
The present invention also provides a method for generating or controlling a tone by use of a plurality of units for generating or controlling a tone, which comprises the steps of; supplying control information for generating or controlling a tone; presenting, for each of the units, identification information defining control information to be used by the unit: and determining, in accordance with the identification information, a particular one of the units which should use the control information supplied by the step of supplying.
Where the present invention is applied, for example, to an electronic musical instrument, the plurality of units to be used may be variable in number. However, the control information used here (such as performance event information based on the MIDI or other predetermined standard) can always be of same specifications irrespective of the variable total number of the units to be used; that is, the control information of the same specifications can always be used versatilely irrespective of the type (performance grade) of the electronic musical instrument. All of the units may be tone generation units, or tone control units such as effectors. Alternatively, the units may comprise a mixture of the tone generation and control units.
The present invention may be constructed and implemented not only as an apparatus invention but also as a method invention. Also, the present invention may be arranged and implemented as a software program for execution by a processor such as a computer or DSP, as well as a storage medium storing such a program. Further, the processor used in the present invention may comprise a dedicated processor with dedicated logic built in hardware, rather than a computer or other general-purpose type processor capable of running a desired software program.
While the embodiments to be described herein represent the preferred form of the present invention, it is to be understood that various modifications will occur to those skilled in the art without departing from the spirit of the invention. The scope of the present invention is therefore to be determined solely by the appended claims.